Tough-Love Drug Rehabs in Mexico Have 'Kidnapping Teams' to Help Addicts Recover Alasdair Baverstock - Fox News Latino
go to original October 22, 2016

Cuautehmoc Avellano of the Fundacion Durango (Alasdair Baverstock/Fox News Latino)

An extreme form of drug and alcohol rehabilitation in Mexico is beginning to attract U.S. citizens, many of whom believe that a tough-love treatment may succeed where 12-step programs have failed.

Known as “anexos” or “granjas” (“annexes” or “barns”), informal Mexican rehabilitation centers have sprung up around the country that are run by former addicts and favor hardline treatments and mental toughness over sympathy and submission to a higher power.

“Many of us have done the 12 steps, but Mexican culture is not as forgiving toward recovering addicts as our northern neighbors,” Jesús Tapia, director at Tijuana’s Casa Recuperación, told Fox News Latino. “Here we find it’s a lot more effective for patients to feel they have fully atoned and paid for their wrong doings.”

The anexo phenomenon began in the 1980s when former addicts, disillusioned with the lack of Mexican state concern for their disease, established private rehabilitation centers.

The anexos, most of which are independent institutions charging around $500 for a three-month program, have proliferated in Mexico, and word of them has reached the United States.

The past two years have seen a surge in U.S. citizens – particularly Mexican-Americans – at Tijuana and other border city facilities.

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